Music is full of long held beliefs that often stand just to be disproven. On his sophomore effort, Post Tropical, James Vincent McMorrow casually brushed aside any notion of the perceived ‘second album syndrome’.

The idea behind the belief is that many artists put so much of their heart and soul into making their debut, that when it comes to a follow up they invariably fall short.

But on the record, released in January, McMorrow took an opportunity to transform himself from the folk balladry of his debut into a much more complex prospect entirely.

The result was a falsetto driven masterpiece, a veritable Jackson Pollock of soundscapes that turned the Dublin songwriter into one of the hottest concert tickets around.

Since it’s release he’s been performing to sell out crowds in Europe, America and Australia, when just a few years earlier he was pushing trollies at Dublin Airport.

He told the Beat: “It’s been a really fun year. I don’t know what to say beyond the fact that it hasn’t disappointed me in any way. I’m not really sure what my expectations were.

“Obviously I’m ambitious and wanted people to like the record, but I didn’t really make it with any real expectation, beyond making something that I really like and was proud of and hopefully that people can connect with.

“Every country we’ve gone to, we’ve been playing bigger and bigger shows. Because live shows are where musicians live and breathe, that’s the best marker for where stuff is at. It’s been incredible from a live perspective.

“We’ve really been able to do some really great things and play some really big shows. That’s kind of it for me at the moment, seeing that kind of reaction is pretty gratifying.”

That will be welcome news for fans hoping to catch McMorrow’s upcoming set at the Electric Picnic, a bill he was added to after a phenomenal performance at Longitude back in July.

But when one considers McMorrow’s approach – he spent six months thinking of ideas for Post Tropical’s lead single Cavalier – his success is understandable. It’s the kind of measured thought that he puts into all of his songs.

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He said: “Thinking about something before committing it to paper is definitely a big aspect of what I do.

“The reason I would keep it in my head is because I work as an arranger. I don’t really think of songs as me and a guitar, or me and a piano.

“I think of songs as me and all these other instruments, all these other sounds. I don’t want to commit to it too quickly.

“I want to listen to all the possibilities in my head before I can say ‘this is where I want it to go.’

“I think of songwriting in that slightly abstract fashion. I don’t think of it in a functional way and I don’t think of it in that verse/chorus/verse/chorus kind of way.

“I’ve never sat down really and written a lyric from start to finish. It doesn’t make sense to my brain to do it like that.”

It’s only been six months since Post Tropical has seen the light of day and it’s fair to say that it’s taken off more than James could have expected. But that hasn’t prevented him from looking towards his next project.

He said: “I’ve been working on a lot of new things. I’ve been working on some other people’s records and stuff that people will hear later in the year.

“The by-product of that has been that I’ve been working on my own stuff, just because I’ve been having a lot of fun writing at the moment. I want to see what else is possible.

“I don’t know whether it’s a record. I don’t know what, necessarily, I’m working on, but I know I’m working on something.

“There’s a couple of things that people will hear in the next little while that is new things from me. I feel like sharing just because I have them and I don’t want to sit on stuff.”

As for the other artist’s records he’s mentioned working with, some of the bigger ones are being kept underwraps.

But James has also been working with a number of new acts who he’s very excited by.

He said: “I’m always reticent to talk about it, not because it’s top secret stuff, just because it’s other people’s records. There’s a UK guy who calls himself Tourist.

“I’ve done some stuff on his record and I’m really excited about it. He’s one of the most talented guys I’ve ever come across. His name is William Phillips and it’s a really beautiful record.

“Texturally it’s right up my street and as a songwriter it really put me in a space where I really enjoyed being.

“There’s another girl who opened some shows for me called Denai Moore. I first saw her, she played on Jools Holland, it was just her and a piano. I remember thinking how brilliant it was, so I called up someone and said ‘She should come and play some shows.’

“So she came and opened the shows and I just loved everything about what she was doing, it was just really effortless.

“I’ve been helping her with her record. We’ve written a song together. She really doesn’t need that much assistance. But it’s been a fun process working with her, she’s a really great musician. It’s something I’m quite proud to be a part of.”

James Celebrates Arthur's Day

James feels that working with other acts has opened him up to new ideas in his own songwriting.

He said: “It’s all been fun. Its been overwhelmingly beneficial to me as a songwriter. It puts me in a space that takes me out of my own head a little bit. I’m not so worried.

“Not that I’m not worried about the songs, or I don’t want them to be great. But when they’re not for your own record you can kinda disconnect yourself from the process a little bit, because it’s someone else’s thing.

“You give them what you give them and they change what they change. That’s really cool, I really dig that. There’s a lot of stuff that’s really fun and I can’t wait for people to hear it.”

Perhaps the biggest indicator of McMorrow’s talent is the emotional weight his fans attach to his work. During his set at Longitude, one man proposed to his girlfriend – and apparently it’s not the first time that’s happened at his gigs.

He said: “That’s incredibly resonant. It’s not lost on me, the sort of weight that people place on the work that I do. It’s sort of a mind-blowing thing.

“That someone would think that in a field in front of thousands of other people during that song is the moment that they want that to happen. That guy thought ‘this is the moment’. It’s unbelievable.”

But despite all the leaps and bounds he’s made this year, James doesn’t feel that Post Tropical, inset, success will put him under pressure on his next outing.

He said: “I know that we’ve moved up through the gears again and there’s more expectation and more ideas. But fundamentally I still feel the same.

“I still feel the same desire to wake up every morning and work on music and to make better thing. I figure as long as I keep that as my core or my centre, I don’t really have that much to be worried about.

“If I woke up one morning and just expected this shit to happen, then I would be worried. But I’m not.

“I don’t feel like I have a divine right to this. I don’t feel like this is what was predestined for me. I feel like this is where I’m supposed to be, but I feel like it’s based on the fact that I work really hard and I take it very seriously.”